


The Icarus To Your Certainty

by allineedisaquill



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Feelings, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24277018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allineedisaquill/pseuds/allineedisaquill
Summary: “Do you think they're real?” He asked quietly, eyes sunken and sad, because asking did not mean he didn’t fear what the answer would reveal.“No, how could they be?”Spoilers for Season 2 and the upcoming Stake Scene™ (this is basically just my take on it before it's ultimately null and void when the episode airs - but I had fun with this nonetheless)
Relationships: Guillermo/Nandor the Relentless (What We Do in the Shadows TV)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	The Icarus To Your Certainty

Nandor felt Guillermo’s anxiety roll off him in waves. His senses, keen and attentive when the rest of him often was not, could always detect the salt of perspiration and the quickening of a pulse. He could practically hear the blood flowing like rapids through Guillermo’s veins, agitated but so addictively _alive_.

It was clear his familiar did not see him approach as he relayed something quickly to the camera crew. The scream the younger man released when Nandor tapped his shoulder only confirmed it.

He stilled and levelled his gaze at him, hand still poised in the air. “It’s just me, Guillermo,” he said, slow and steady, the way one might speak to a spooked animal.

“Hello, sir,” Guillermo said, and Nandor might have waved away the wobble to his voice and chalked it up to his familiar’s usual awkwardness, were it not for the other times of late when his suspicions had been raised. Guillermo had grown distant and it was not lost on him, and neither were the little lies here and there that slipped out as though Guillermo found it _easy_ to deceive him.

He didn’t know what to do with the lump that formed in his throat every time he thought of his faithful familiar keeping a secret, and he had not yet worked out a way to ask where it was that Guillermo disappeared to sometimes or whose blood he tracked through the house to wash down their drains. At first, Nandor had employed a simple wilful ignorance, too pained to acknowledge the things that may be hidden, but over the weeks he had tortured himself with the knowledge that whatever it was, Guillermo was determined to hide it. There were only so many more nights he could drive himself to madness in the dark confines of his coffin.

Guillermo stood before him, wide-eyed and uneasy, and Nandor almost felt guilty for questioning his loyalty. In truth, they had all been a little on edge - himself included - and their temporary guests had done nothing to ease it. Nandor knew it couldn’t explain the vampire blood that crusted on Guillermo’s fine shirts and sweater sleeves, the unmistakable scent burning his nose like acid on more than one occasion when Guillermo thought him oblivious, but the guilt swarmed him all the same.

Where Guillermo was concerned, Nandor found it was never simple. He didn’t have enough fingers to count the times he’d failed to reprimand him, scold him, hold him accountable for a disrespectful tone or slammed door. Somewhere along their contract of Master and Familiar, the ink had been smudged and the lines muddied until he was left with nothing but confusion and an ache, deep in his chest, that more than made up for a lack of heartbeat. It was an ache no bloodlust could relieve, the one fight Nandor could not conquer.

“Are you alright?” Nandor asked warily, unmoving. 

He saw the bob of Guillermo’s throat as he swallowed. “Yes,” he said, and Nandor made no claim of being the brightest of the bunch but he knew when a question was answered too quickly to possibly be the truth.

Nandor tilted his head, brows pulled together. “Did one of our guests bother you, Guillermo? I won’t have them ordering you around.” He hoped against hope there was nothing more to it, that he could wave away Guillermo’s troubles with one authoritative command, but that hope was quashed when his gaze flickered down to the way Guillermo’s hands fumbled behind his back. Alarm bells rang in his head but Nandor remained where he was. He dared not move.

Guillermo shook his head. “No, Master,” he said. “I was just going for some air.”

Another lie that came far too easily. Every cavity Nandor’s body had filled with viscous sadness. “You know, you really shouldn’t be going out alone, Guillermo. Not with all the rumours flying about,” he told him.

“Rumours?” Guillermo’s voice hitched too high, expression pinched where he tried and failed to silently decipher his Master’s carefully controlled voice.

“Of familiar killers.” He paused. “And vampire killers.” Increased heart rate. Sheen at the temples and above his lip. Nandor felt queasy as Guillermo’s vitals betrayed him and his brain supplied him with a steady chant of _no, no, please, no_. “Do you think they’re real?” He asked quietly, eyes sunken and sad, because asking did not mean he didn’t fear what the answer would reveal.

He could have cried at Guillermo's nervous laugh. “No, how could they be?” He dismissed with a miniscule shake of his head, even as his hands fiddled further with whatever he still concealed.

The response replaced his own blood, unflowing and thick, with ice. In the end, the denial was all Nandor needed to confirm his worst fears as real. Guillermo - _his_ Guillermo - soft and sweet with a smile like the sun, was wrapped in something more thick and foreign than worn blue wool. 

“Guillermo…” Nandor began as he attempted a single step closer. He raised his hand again, though with it he didn’t know what he intended to do. He didn’t know how to reach Guillermo despite how close they stood. He didn’t know anything at all.

He had been a warrior, once. It meant Nandor was no stranger to the pain and loneliness brought on by betrayal; he didn’t become a ruthless warlord and ruler without many enemies ready to stab him in the back and overthrow his victories. But those savage blows were nothing compared to the stakes aimed at his chest by the man he trusted the most, the man he’d practically begged to stay with him when he had felt most vulnerable. The wood dug harshly into his skin through his layers, undeniable and real, and it was all Nandor could do to pan his gaze up until he could finally meet the horrified face of his familiar.

“Stay back,” Guillermo warned, even as his eyes welled with tears. He smelled of dread and anguish, Nandor noted, and tried not to let his heart break further. He didn't want to imagine what on Earth Guillermo thought him capable of when it came to the two of them. Did Guillermo entertain the idea that he would kill him? Nandor couldn't think of anything more absurd. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t ask for—” Nandor knew it wouldn’t be long before the panic overtook him completely. Guillermo’s laboured breathing was not a new phenomenon from the ten years in his company and he often wondered how so much anxiety could fit inside of him. “I didn’t want this,” he tried again in a broken rasp. “I tried to keep you safe, but I have these—these _instincts_ , that just take over. You won’t understand. You can’t. You _can’t._ ”

One moment Guillermo’s hands trembled. The next they fell limp to his sides. The sound of the stakes as they clattered to the floor was deafening.

Nandor could only continue to stare. His brain had shuddered to a halt. There was so much he wanted to say, and so much he just couldn’t. He wanted to understand, so badly he wanted to.

_You can’t,_ Guillermo’s voice insisted. _You can’t._

Guillermo hadn't even given him the chance to.

“So it is true,” Nandor said when he finally found his voice. “Your lineage dictates you a slayer of my kind.” The words hurt to form, sat on his tongue like the flames of some holy utterance - though he supposed gospel itself would have been easier to speak of than this excruciating certitude.

Guillermo’s tether to him may have been stretched to its limits but Nandor couldn’t stand to see it break, and hateful was the feeling of their trust slipping through his fingers like sand. In the insurmountable span of his immortal existence, all it was and all it could be, he had found a steady constant in Guillermo.

All Nandor knew for certain was that he wasn’t ready to lose it.

So when he sensed movement from deeper within the rooms, he had to act fast. Thinking on his feet was as natural to him as hypnosis but Guillermo wasn’t the only one with instincts. When the chips were down, Nandor could muster up a plan of action with little to nothing, awakening the commander that lay dormant within. It had gotten them out of a scrape or two over the years.

Guillermo heard the creaking of footsteps, too, and the distant rumble of voices quickly followed. His eyes became impossibly wide and terrified behind the round rims of his glasses. “Fuck,” he whispered. His spiral kicked back in tenfold as he alternated fearful looks between Nandor, the cameras, and the stakes that sat at their feet.

The cameras had already caught too much. If any of them were questioned, the jig would very likely be up in a matter of seconds - and Nandor couldn’t guarantee the other vampires would be quite as amenable as perhaps Laszlo and Nadja would. He didn’t doubt they would jump at the first chance to drink Guillermo dry.

They could reach a point of no return. He could lose Guillermo entirely.

They were running out of time.

Nandor forgot all apprehension. He swept forwards in a blur and Guillermo could barely flinch before two strong hands grasped his shoulders. “Get out of here,” Nandor hissed under his breath. They were drawn so close together and Nandor wished it were under different circumstances, ones where he could savour his familiar’s warmth and intoxicating proximity. He had longed for so many years, never giving in. How he wanted, so very desperately in that moment, to kiss the fear from Guillermo’s shaking lips. “They cannot discover this, Guillermo. You must leave at once,” he said instead, and he forced himself to release his grip.

Though he let go, Nandor felt the tether there still, holding on valiantly. It would not break. He would not let it.

Guillermo’s face was a wild contortion of emotion. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose slightly but he didn’t correct them. “But what about—” 

“ _Go_ ,” Nandor repeated. A direct order, harsh and fast, punctuated with one last shove of Guillermo toward the door. “I will handle it. Go somewhere safe and I will find you.”

Guillermo was halfway out of the door before Nandor made the split-second decision to retrieve the stakes from the floor. Just holding them was abhorrent, but not as abhorrent as the thought of throwing his familiar out into the vampire-filled streets unarmed.

“Guillermo!” He shouted urgently, face wrinkled, and he threw the stakes into the air without another word. The vampires were quite literally seconds away.

His grimace gave way to awe as he watched Guillermo move instinctively, perfectly, catching a stake in each hand respectively without so much as turning around. So his familiar would have been unarmed, yes, but certainly not defenceless by any stretch of the imagination.

What else could his small and unassuming familiar do? Whether he could call it morbid curiosity or not, Nandor didn’t know, but the fires of his hurt were diminished somewhat by the way Guillermo had reacted so effortlessly. Was it impressive? Did it stoke the embers of some different part of him, a part of him that could learn in time to appreciate Guillermo in a whole new light?

He had no time left to wonder but when his company finally caught up with him, he stood in the entrance hall to their house alone.

Guillermo fled into the cover of night.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi - guillermothegay.tumblr.com (and special thanks to the discord for encouraging the angst train)


End file.
